I got it in the bathroom!

With the leading role in Anastasia (1956), Ingrid Bergman made her American comeback after she had spent years in Italy making films with Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini. Bergman had been forced to stay in Italy due to her affair with Rossellini and the major scandal it caused in the U.S. in 1949 (read more here). But in 1956, Bergman separated from Rossellini and, after being considered persona non grata in the U.S. for years, returned to the American screen with Anastasia and immediately won her second Oscar. 

On 27 March 1957, Cary Grant accepted the Oscar on Bergman's behalf during the 29th Academy Award ceremony. (Bergman herself was in Paris at the time starring in the French adaptation of the play Tea and Sympathy.) Bergman and Grant had become very good friends since they had worked together on Hitchock's Notorious (1946), and Grant was also one of the few people in Hollywood who had defended and supported Bergman during the Rossellini scandal. So it was only natural for Bergman to ask her dear friend to accept the award on her behalf in case she won. Of course, Grant willingly accepted and you can watch his acceptance speech here.

Above: Ingrid Bergman and her good friend Cary Grant who accepted the Oscar for Anastasia on her behalf; Bergman and Grant made two movies together: Notorious (1946 and Indiscreet (1958). Below: Yul Brynner and Bergman in a scene from "Anastasia", a film directed by Anatole Litvak.

Below: Backstage at the 29th Oscar ceremony with Anthony Quinn (Best Supporting Actor for Lust for Life), Dorothy Malone (Best Supporting Actress for Written on the Wind), Yul Brynner (Best Actor for The King and I) and Cary Grant holding Ingrid Bergman's Oscar for Best Actress for Anastasia.

The letter for this post is a letter from Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant written in Paris on 29 March 1957, two days after the Oscar ceremony. Bergman thanks her friend for accepting the award for her and for the sweet words he spoke at the ceremony. She also tells him that, despite having given interviews to the press all day, she only fully realised that she had won the Oscar when she was in the bathroom hearing his voice on the radio.

Source: theacademy.tumblr.com/ from the Cary Grant papers at the Margaret Herrick Library

Transcript:

Paris 29-3-1957

My dear Cary, my wonderful friend:

I got the news about the award in the morning at 6 o'clock. I said on the phone: "I got it?" The answer was yes--- and I fell asleep again. This seems a very indifferent way of accepting an Oscar, but I was full of sleeping pills so that I could go through the night! A couple of hours later I was awakened and what seems to me 1000 photographers. The whole day I did nothing but answer questions in all languages about how I felt. I really felt a very dull happiness and was only hoping the day would end. Finallay [sic] it was over and I went to my room to take a bath and to see Tola and celebrate -in peace- the evening. I hear a scream and my 7 year old son rushes into the bathroom with the radio in his hands, yelling "Mama, they are talking about you". He came in just as I heared [sic] my name mentioned and the roar of the public in Hollywood. It was a transmission -on wire- with a French commentator about the awards. In the back of the commentator I heared your voice. You said something about "if you can hear me now" and "wherever you are the [sic] the world" and I said "I am here, Cary, in the bathroom!"And then you gave me the good wishes and I could hear all the people cheer. That was the moment I really received the Oscar and I felt tears coming to my eyes. Having known about it all day, but still not GETTING it, I GOT it in the bathroom! What a place to get an Oscar! Nothing could have made me happier than that you took it and I thank you for the sweet words you said. How lucky that I heard them, it was all due to my little boy! 

With my love,

Ingrid (signed)

_______________________

Note

Bergman's first Oscar was for her leading role in Gaslight (1944), and she would win a third Oscar for her supporting role in the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express.

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